Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Study re; autistic tendencies and math professions

This is an interesting study I found while perusing the web. Might be old news to some. A study was conducted by Cambridge University Autism Research Centre. They administered a 50 question survey to students that was designed as a screening tool to identify adults with autistic tendencies. (I attached the survey)

http://aq.server8.org/


The results of the study were very intersting (this from wikipedia but I found the same results on other sites):

In the initial trials of the test,[7] the average score in the control group was 16.4, with men scoring slightly higher than women (about 17 versus about 15). 80% of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders scored 32 or more, compared with only 2% of the control group.

The authors cited a score of 32 or more as indicating "clinically significant levels of autistic traits". However, although the test is popularly used for self-diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, the authors caution that it is not intended to be diagnostic, and advise that anyone who obtains a high score and is suffering some distress should seek professional medical advice before jumping to any conclusions.

A further research paper[5] indicated that the questionnaire could be used for screening in clinical practice, with scores of 26 or lower indicating that a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome can effectively be ruled out.

The questionnaire was also trialled on Cambridge University students, and a group of sixteen winners of the British Mathematical Olympiad, to determine whether there was a link between a talent for mathematical and scientific disciplines and traits associated with the autism spectrum.

Mathematics, physical sciences and engineering students were found to score significantly higher, e.g. 21.8 on average for mathematicians and 21.4 for computer scientists. The average score for the British Mathematical Olympiad winners was 24.

Of the students who scored 32 or more on the test, eleven agreed to be interviewed and seven of these were reported to meet the DSM-IV criteria for Asperger Syndrome, although no formal diagnosis was made as they were not suffering any distress.

It would be interesting to have your close friends or spouse take the test for you.

It says I should go see a shrink. LOL.

I score average, but higher than the average man (and I'm a woman). That tracks with my experience.

very interesting. I scored low (i guess i'm a party girl!), but I kept looking at the questions thinking "hmm, my brother is the exact opposite." In reading up on all things gifted, I've been thinking my brother was probably 2e in some ways, and thus never identified as gifted in school, even though he's clearly smart. Although I wouldn't say he's autistic or has AS, he definitely lacks the ability to know when the person he's talking to has lost interest!

Hmm...that's doesn't seem like a good score for me (37) but I do have some social anxiety and LOVE math and patterns.

Kriston, you have met me. Should I seek professional help?

ETA: The online adult ADD quiz I took at work a few weeks ago also showed a very high score and recommended I seek professional help.

Nah, you seemed perfectly fine to me, crisc.

(Then again, I'd have had a similar score to yours, I suspect, if I were more math-y than I am. So what do I know?)

It's apparently one time when being an English major actually helps me. How unusual!

LOL! I scored a 25! Must be the social aspect.

Well, I'd still invite all of you to my party (i scored 9). But i guess you probably wouldn't come...

LOL! Or we'd come, but we'd all stand around awkwardly and not talk to each other.

I'll put out little solitaire-type games and puzzles on all the coffee tables. Then everyone could be happy!

LOL!!!!

21. I would come to YOUR party, however, now I realize that I am particular about these things.

Now I have to go take the add test.

Hey, does anyone have a: are you having a nervous breakdown test?

22. I THINK I would come to your party. But I might talk myself out of it.

Sure. It's one question:

1) Are you advocating for your children to get GT services in the schools and feeling frustrated by the response (or lack thereof)?

If you answered yes, you're probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Well, I'd better warn you. Turns out i'm also borderline ADHD (at least that's what psych central says). Don't know how that will factor into your decision...

Oh - and I'm curious if anyone answered "not at all" to this question on the ADHD quiz, or if anyone wondered why uninteresting and difficult are shoved together? My thoughts were "Oh no - i *love* uninteresting things - i think why, how uninteresting! tell me more!":

1. At home, work, or school, I find my mind wandering from tasks that are uninteresting or difficult.

Awesome! Thanks Kriston! And now I know that I also may have "mild add".

I'm going to print out the results of your test and the other one and see if the pharmacy will accept it in lieu of a doctor scrip for Xanax and Speed!

Hooray!!!!!!

I was one dissertation short of being a doctor--think that will get you anywhere with the pharmacy?

Probably not...

I'll be there, I have to swing by and pick up Barbara first....

Disclaimer: I am not attempting to minimize the difficulties of add, nervous breakdowns or other. My husband has ADD and I know it can be a challenge.

That said, I'll leave the hilarity to you ladies. It's way past my bedtime!

I like this website. I just took the ocd test. I scored zero, so that was good. Except, then I got a pop-up that said:

I just PMd 'Neato that I think some of that ADD quiz penalizes moms.

Do any of us finish everything we start? Avoid being bothered by minor annoyances (that happen over and over and over all day long...)? Are any of us not always on the go to extracurriculars and playdates?

I'm calling it parental-onset ADD, and I bet it subsides when the kids go to college.

Wha-huh? Naw! you're joking, right? Pulling my leg?

ooh! i'll have to take that one tomorrow. the spoiler content sounds like me! bon soir

I just took the autism quiz. I scored a 41. Being fascinated by numbers, I had the rest of my family members take the quiz too.

I scored 17. I have a fascination with numbers and patterns on the one hand but like chitchat on the other. I really enjoy yakking with other people at the park or in a line. I wonder if my strong inclinations in each category are out of synch with the norm?

I had friends who used to accuse me of being a calculator because I could pull phone numbers up so readily. When a passenger in a car, I often stare out the window collecting data on whatever strikes my fancy (number plates, for example). I do this even if I'm barking at my kids to settle down back there! (I also have to force myself NOT to look at number plates when I'm driving; I'm pretty successful in that regard).

Anyone else?

Val

I thought the same about this one! The question strikes me as implying that you have ADD if you don't lap up every dull paragraph that comes your way. I mean, isn't the quality of inducing loss of focus inherent to stuff that's uninteresting?

Count me among the cases of mild ADD. Let's turn this around and say that our ADD tendencies come from being intelligent, and then tie them to the behavioral issues so many of our kids have in school.

Val

Which is when we'll collapse into a state of happy catatonia until the first panicked phone call happens (My roommate leaves her dirty underwear on the floor! I can't take this anymore!!).

Oh no! My Gifted Cat just got hold of DS8's unfinished box of "grape" flavored Nerds and is manically bashing them everywhere!

Val

I scored a 20 on the autism thing; somewhat high for a gal I guess. It would be very funny to me if I've just been boring people to tears with my conversations for the last 30++ years and have no clue!



Too funny Cathy!!
I could definitely see my sis and Mom in the 'fascinated with numbers' questions. I will have to forward to sis!
The main reason I think I do ok in conversations is my Mom used to say I really have a gift for understanding people, but maybe coming from her that wasn't such a big compliment...

SPG, I'll come to your party if I can bring a book and read in the corner part of the time.

I scored much higher on the autism test (32) than I thought I would and had to restrain myself from retaking it like Dottie to make myself "normal." Would anyone else have scored much closer to normal when you were younger and had more patience for parties because you thought you were supposed to enjoy them more?

Thanks for the laugh today to balance out the good cry from the poetry thread.

OK - i was going to be done with this, but woke up thinking "i wonder how one scores on the test relates to meyers-briggs personality profiles? I wonder this because I know i'm in a minority here with my ENTP. Well, spocks and mathies, did you score higher on the autistic tendencies test?

Dottie - i had troubles with the theatre vs museum question too! (Aw, man, do i have to choose!?)

I was dead average on the autism quiz... but then I took the ADHD quiz and wandered away in the middle.... I don't even remember my (eventual) score because that was yesterday and by the time I came back to it I'd completely forgotten where I had the link from, but suffice it to say it was pretty darn high.

But given how much of that intervening time I spent thinking about whether my general tendency to say "definitely" more often than not was a factor in both my "not autistic" and "oh look something shiny" results, and whether that was taken into account in the design of the quizzes or if maybe they could be completely wrong, or if that should bear out in the statistics anyway, and just how well were they tested, and how many ways could you have a correlation of either one that didn't prove to be diagnostic.... I don't think I even need to take the OCD quiz.

Me, too! I was thinking, Sheesh, I have to choose? How?"

I think I picked theater, but only because it's been longer since I've been to a play than since I've been to a museum...

I counted the times I did either this year and answered that way. Heh.

This test does not weed out those who are intense and with broad interests.

I took the test and scored surprisingly low, considering my social anxiety issues.

My 10 year old son also wanted to take it, just out of curiosity, even though he knew it was for adults, so I let him. Because of his sensory issues, talking like an adult, ability to read words in a book that he had not seen before without being taught and ability to also name words that were spelled out for him starting at 2 1/2, people have sometimes suggested that he might have Asperger's. In fact, a few times people told us "he had to be autistic or have Asperger's because a normal kid could not do the things he was doing. Doctors told us that he did not have Asperger's, but when my son and I read Gifted Gear Reviews online a while back and learned that it was written by a a boy a few years older than my son and this boy had been diagnosed with Asperger's, I think my son was wondering if maybe he did have it because the things this boy wrote sounded so similar to the way he thinks and talks.

But my son, who my adult former cheerleader daughter thinks is even more social than she was at his age, with better social skills and no social anxiety issues like his mother, scored a 17. Math is not his favorite subject so he is only doing Aleks middle school math and he never wants to do the extra practice or do more than the minimum required to add to his pie. I don't think he will choose a profession that requires a lot of math. Yesterday, he told his aunt that he would like to earn college degrees in more than one thing so that he could be a writer or a video game designer or something that involves science.

Your DS never sounds like he's very far along on the autism spectrum to me, Lori. Not that that matters, but his score doesn't surprise me at all. I'd have guessed he'd score lower than I do.

I'm a spock/mathy:

Autism/Aspergers-->41 (likely)
ADD-->15 (unlikely)
OCD-->18 (likely)

Lori, reading your post reminds me a little of how I sometimes feel about myself. I do think I have a few personal quirks that seem to fit right on the spectrum. But, I think what evens out my score is that I also have excellent interpersonal sensitivity and skills.

It's kind of like, ewwww, I can totally tell what you are thinking by reading your subtle cues, when in reality, I don't even want to know you!

Not you, of course, by you I mean, any random person.
Does that sound like it fits? It can be anxiety provoking!

Just like any difficulty I've had to learn to mange it vs. it managing me.

If that is an indication of how they diagnose Aspergers, then I think Aspergers is an invented disorder. It's invented by airheads that prefer to chitchat about what color shoes they need to get to match their plaid suit. There's no room in their heads to be at peace with themselves, to not feel lonely when they are alone, and no desire to dig into the things that bring order to this world.

OK, that was a pretty extreme condemnation of people who diagnose Aspergers, I admit that. I don't even agree 100% with what I said. But what if we 'mathy' people were in the majority? Would the social butterflies be diagnosed with a 'disorder'?

I obviously not a mathy person since I score only 9....


oh well, it is good then that I did not change my mind back when I was a university student and keep studying physics instead of mathematics.

I wanted to add:SPG, not only I will come and enjoy your party but as well chat with everyone - whether you like it or not - and help you with organization if you let me hehee.

I SO agree! I do think AS is real, but I also think that a lot of the non-experts who make their pseudo-diagnoses that because a kid is bright and focused and introverted, he must have a problem are as annoying as all get-out.

Being a mathy introvert is not a disorder. No matter what your quiz score says.

So there, quiz! :p <pbbbb>

Lol!
Yes, I hear Physics doesn't involve much math...

Yeah, I am not sure it's fool-proof; my accountant bro got an 11!
I suppose mathy-folk are more complex a group than we imagine.
I don't really think of myself as 'mathy' although I enjoy programming at my job and trouble shooting programs and systems.

I guess at best I would say I am a lover of pattern whether that is in language, numbers, how a program behaves or doesn't behave, etc. I love to solve problems by finding the patterns.

I agree, CFK. Who would have discovered the best way to knap flint, say? The casual dude who preferred talking to people, or the highly focused, thing-based guy?

I suspect many of the advances of humanity were developed by people on the more social end of the autism spectrum...

Yes, good point CFK~

You mean the ability to sit in one place staring at one thing for long periods of time as well as an ability to make things?

Sounds like hunting to me.

So does that mean that the ADD/ADHD end of things is the Gatherer branch of the human family?

"Oh! Look over there! Something good to eat!"